Public employees must recognize pension mess

Tools

So many public sector employees have yelled at me, stalked and blocked me while I was collecting signatures for Jeff Adachi’s pension reform measure. Can you imagine the outrage if I went to these same city employees’ workplaces and harassed them about not caring about The City’s finances or future city worker pensions? They would call the police on me.

I think these employees need to realize The City’s economy is in dire straits and the days of lavish retirements are history. Pension reform is an issue around the country and around the world. City workers should be grateful they even have jobs as so many others are unemployed or are the working poor. Most of all, it turns people off by making city employees look desperate and pathetic when they vent their frustrations on petition workers.

Denise Jameson, San Francisco

No more gimmick budgets

Gov. Jerry Brown and the legislative Democrats passed yet another “gimmick” budget that merely “kicks the can down the road.” The gimmick gained no support from Republicans and independents who desired true structural changes to stop future short-term politicians from spending more than they take in or making future commitments (i.e. pension promises) that can’t be sustained in later years.

This irresponsibility created California’s estimated $500 billion unfunded pension obligation to state workers. Republicans agreed to place Brown’s desired tax extensions on the ballot, but only if Brown and his allies agreed to place corresponding ballot measures relating to pension reform and a state spending cap.

Then polls showed that voters would pass pension reform and a spending cap, but reject Brown’s tax request. So the Democrats pulled it and passed a gimmick budget that relies on $4 billion in future revenue from a lottery ticket.

Mike Brown, Burlingame

Misguided online taxing

Gov. Jerry Brown has once again demonstrated a deaf ear to commerce. The taxing of online businesses such as Amazon.com will cost jobs and revenue. The Postal Service, for where I work, will lose millions of dollars due to this action on the part of Brown and the Democrats in the state Legislature.

These are the same political types who, a generation ago under the 1978 leadership (or lack thereof) by then-Gov. Jerry Brown, were willing to tax seniors out of their homes so as to advance a rather radical notion of wealth redistribution. But of course Proposition 13 put an end to that.